"My doctor said it was 'probably fine'" - one Cosmo reader's account of an eating disorder

Cosmo's eating disorder campaign with Beat has had a huge reaction, and we've been flooded with readers accounts detailing their own battles with food. Here's just one of the emotive eating disorder stories we received...

"I was 25 by the time I found the courage to ask my GP for help with my eating disorder. Though 'courage' is, in a million ways, the wrong word for what finally made me go. What I should say is that I was 25 before my brain shifted – until I remembered that making myself sick after every meal wasn't normal. That secretly taking laxatives when I thought I'd eaten too much wasn't something to be proud of. Or that no one should choose their meals based on what foods were the easiest to throw up.

"It took me nine long years of living with an abusive relationship raging inside me every second of the day, until I had finally had enough and resolved to control my eating disorder instead of letting it control me. Meal by meal, I fought against it. I started congratulating myself for not being sick rather than the other way around. When I finally got to a stage where I could look back and see how low I'd been, I realised I needed help to make sure I never went to that place again. And that's when I went to my GP.

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"I don't know what I expected to happen – fanfares and 'Well done!' banners for getting this far – but what I was met with cut me in two. After shakily confessing what I'd been through – something I'd never admitted to more than a few close friends – the doctor did a basic examination. He told me not to worry. I wasn't in any real danger. My BMI wasn't below healthy guidelines. I was probably going to be fine, now I'd outgrown this. I could have some counselling if I wanted, but I'd need to go on a long waiting list, then I'd have to pay. And was I aware that counselling was quite expensive?

"It wasn't as if I expected the last decade of my life to magically be erased as soon as I walked through the surgery doors, but when a doctor, a person in a position of authority, effectively tells you that your problem's no big deal, it fuels all the myths about eating disorders you've spent years carefully constructing – the ones that let you pretend what you're doing isn't that bad and certainly not something you can't handle.

"But the truth is very different. Anyone with an eating disorder – whether it fits into the NHS criteria of one or not – deserves help. It's not just something you can 'handle' any more than it's something you choose to 'get'. Half of the 1.6 million people in Britain who suffer from eating disorders have EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) – a term that includes anything that doesn't fit into the stringent anorexia and bulimia categories. That's 800,000 people like me who could be classified as off the danger-list, but in reality are screaming inside and anything but.

"I never went back for counselling. When you've cancelled an appointment four times only to be met with a brick wall, fighting back feels unsurmountable. But I wish I had. That abusive relationship inside me has been there so long I can't call it a rage anymore; it's more of a constant hum which affects my thoughts second by second if I turn the volume up. I have no idea how to eat without feeling guilt or panic or pride. As a result, my weight yo-yos regularly taking my mood and self esteem with it. I wonder if this would be the case if someone hadn't told me not to worry because worry is all I do.

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"That's why Cosmo and beat's Silent Illness campaign is one of the most important they'll ever fight. Print out the open letter; take it to your doctor. No woman – or man – should be told they're not ill enough for help. Because if they hear it enough, they just might believe it too."

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